


Finding Equilibrium

by LoveEffect



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Has ADHD, Jaskier | Dandelion is a Noble, Jaskier's home life really sucks, Muteness, Not Canon Compliant, Past Child Abuse, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Returning Home, Slow Burn, Timeline What Timeline, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23341054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveEffect/pseuds/LoveEffect
Summary: Plot kind of stolen from an anon on someone else's blog, sooooo hopefully that's alright. Original post: https://dandelionslute.tumblr.com/post/613543388734799872/his-mother-always-told-him-that-love-will-be-his"His mother always told him that love will be his hubris and he had always taken it for granted. Then Geralt yelled at him and it was stupidly /unfair/ because why is he taking the blame? And as he trudged down the mountain he thought fine, if Geralt wanted him gone he will be. From then on, not a single word dripped out of his mouth. In his silence, Jaskier had died and Julian continues in his lonesome back home. In the clutches of his mother’s “I told you so”s and a world without music."Content warnings for an abusive home life and anxiety.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 98
Kudos: 216
Collections: Witcher





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also FUCK the canon timeline, Jaskier is baby in this because I just. Wanted him to still be in his twenties and impressionable, young and dumb as they say.

Jaskier stands, fidgeting with the embroidery on his sleeve. Just for a moment. Just in case Geralt calms enough to realize what he’s said, what he’s done, take it back, take _him_ back. But he doesn’t. He just stands there, clenching his fists and staring out over the mountains. Jaskier stares at Geralt’s back for a moment longer, his hopes shriveling in his chest and joining the guilt and panic in his stomach. His mother always did tell him that looking for love would only ever give him pain. He’s only been traveling with Geralt for a half decade, but it still feels like forever, like the best years of his life, like he should be worth just a bit more than being discarded like this. Then again, he’s always been too much, for anyone.

“See you around, Geralt,” Jaskier says, feeling so much older than 24. He waits another moment, just to be sure, he has to be sure Geralt isn’t changing his mind. And he’s not. Jaskier turns away and walks slow but steady back to the campsite. He can hear the snap of a portal slamming shut just before the campsite comes into view. Yennefer and her things are gone without a trace. Thank the gods for that, Jaskier really isn’t up for her barbed words at the moment. The dwarves ignore him fully, just as they have this entire trip, even when introducing himself with his full title. Jaskier gathers his things and takes a heaving breath before slipping away from the dwarves and their excited packing.

Downhill is much faster than up, and he reaches the start of the trail by afternoon, where Roach still stands safe, comfortably grazing nearby greenery. He approaches slowly and gives her the last of the sugar cubes hidden in the pocket of his doublet. He strokes Roach’s nose and presses a gentle kiss to her face, and she snorts at him. He’ll miss her. He gives her one last pat and begins walking.

It’s a long way to get back to Redania down south, he’s just about as far north as anyone can get. He’ll have to pass through Caingorn again, though from there he could veer west. Nothing’s really there except for the coast, he can go through Creyden to reach Pont Vanis, hire a ship to sail down to Novigrad, though he’s not sure he has the coin for it, and there’s no guarantee there will even be any passenger ships for hire. He’ll walk instead. Through Kaedwen into Redania, all the way down and across the Pontar river, past Oxenfurt and Novigrad, very nearly to the doorstep of Kerack, where his cousin Ferrant should still be the royal instigator. All the way to Lettenhove.

It'll take a while, but he has good solid boots ~~bought at Geralt’s insistence~~ and he has enough coin to keep himself fed for the entire trip. He nearly can’t believe he’s doing this. He left at sixteen to attend Oxenfurt and hasn’t been home since. It’s been nearly a decade and now here he is, running back home to mommy just because he went and proved what she’d told him all along. How pathetic.

Jaskier reaches Caingorn while the market is still active and he perches on a low wall, pulling his lute in front of him and making sure she’s still in tune. Of course, she is. And she doesn’t belong to him, she never has. This is Filavandrel’s lute, not his own. Gorgeous elven craftmanship, strings that last longer than they really should.

He begins strumming, though his teeth feel glued shut with bitter sap. If he tries to open his mouth to sing, he fears he might rip out his teeth, shatter his jaw, shred muscle and skin like overcooked pork. It’s the song he’s been working on for the last few days, though the words have definitely changed. He can’t sing them, can’t open his mouth, so they stay stuck in his throat, rolling in his chest, and he resigns himself to plucking out the melody over the harmony in the lower strings.

It feels like he’s ripped his own heart out of his chest, but at least it earns him a few handfuls of coins from passersby who aren’t really listening. He collects them from the dirt, keeping his head down.

“Did you write that yourself?” a bright voice asks, and Jaskier looks up from where he’s crouched at a beautiful woman. Long, corn silk hair, ocean-blue eyes, and a small crooked smile. He nods, and her eyes light up with excitement and recognition. “You’re Jaskier, aren’t you,” she says nearly reverentially.

Jaskier rises, tucking the coins away, biting his lip. He nods again, and the young woman visibly suppresses a shriek of delight. “I’ve always wanted to meet you, your ballads travel far and wide—oh, my name’s Priscilla, by the way,” she says. Jaskier smiles warmly at her, finally noticing that she’s dressed in the colorful garb of a trobairitz. A bard in her own right. He takes her hand and raises it to his lips, noting the lute callouses on her otherwise soft hands. He might as well behave as he normally does, even if everything feels like it’s still cracking and crumbling apart.

“I’ve not heard that song before. Does it have words?” Priscilla asks, and Jaskier winces but nods. He takes a breath, then scrambles through his pack to reach his notebook. He opens it to the old lyrics, frowning at the shaky rhymes and poor flow.

“Oh, gorgeous garrotter? I like that,” Priscilla says, and Jaskier shakes his hand over the words.

‘Old,’ he writes quickly, and Priscilla looks at him sharply.

“Is your voice alright?” she asks, the concern evident in her voice and expression only increasing when Jaskier presses his lips together.

He quickly writes out the words to the song, making sure they’re clear enough for her to read, then settles back on the low wall. He pats the stone next to him and Priscilla sits next to him. He settles the notebook on his knee so they can both see.

 _The fairer sex, they often call it_. He taps each word in the rhythm they need to be sung, then plucks out the same line on his lute, and Priscilla matches the notes perfectly. They go through the entire song line by line (though it doesn’t take very long), and they play through the song together, Jaskier playing the lute and Priscilla singing the words and melody line perfectly, which brings an actual smile to Jaskier’s face. She preens and gathers their tips from the dirt in front of them, splitting it evenly between them.

Jaskier starts sketching out the chords and finger progressions of the song, and Priscilla’s breath catches in her throat. He writes out the little flourishes he added, the riffs and bridges between chords.

“Jaskier, what are you doing?” Priscilla asks, voice shaking every so slightly. He flips back in the notebook, all the way back to Toss a Coin, and points at a riff he wrote out, the riff that nobody ever tries to mimic. After all, the riffs and bridges and flourishes belong to a bard, not a song. It’s a copyright of sorts, an insurance that a song can never be truly stolen, only borrowed. He plays through some of the riffs, slow enough that Priscilla can see what he’s doing, until she puts her hand on his to stop him. “What are you doing?” she repeats, voice shrill with panic, a few tears in her eyes. Bards don’t share the riffs they create.

Jaskier shrugs the lute off his shoulders and hooks the strap over Priscilla’s head, even though she’s shaking her head in protest. He flips to a clean page and writes a quick note before closing the notebook and presses it into her hands, even though the tears are now rolling down her cheeks. She knows exactly what he’s doing, and she knows enough not to stop him. He brushes the tears away with gentle fingers and leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead, pulling her closer when she lets out a small sob.

Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove pulls away and squeezes Priscilla’s shoulder, then walks away, leaving her to pull herself together while sitting on a low wall, clutching a priceless elven lute and a notebook that lesser bards would kill to get their hands on. He stops at a few stalls to buy a few days’ worth of food, then walks out of the city center.

Julian walks out of Caingorn, leaving Jaskier behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: brief anxiety attack, extremely vague reference to CSA, emotional manipulation.

It takes a week and a half of nearly non-stop traveling to get to Lettenhove. No monsters devour him in the night and no bandits attempt to slit his throat, and he isn’t entirely sure how he feels about that. His feet have gone numb, since Julian pushes himself harder than Geralt ever did to Jaskier. He tries not to notice as passes Oxenfurt, but he looks longingly at the stone buildings and red shingle rooftops just barely visible in the distance, but he knows he doesn’t belong there. Not anymore, and possibly never in the first place. He reaches Lettenhove the next day, although not a single person gives him a second glance until he reaches the Pankratz estate as the sun starts painting the sky purple.

The lands are just as quiet as he remembers them being, the atmosphere dead and heavy on his chest as soon as he walks through the gates. The buildings are just as he left them, standing strong and well-maintained through a rotation of servants and workmen, all with strict instructions to work as quietly as possible. There are three smaller houses lining the road leading to the manor, each housing two or three of the families who work the fields surrounding the estate. Their hunter lives in the small hut closest to the gate with his wife, and maybe by now they’ve succeeded in having that child they’ve been trying for. The house servants live in the manor proper, keeping the halls clean and the estate well-fed. He can hear the soft murmur of people talking in the houses—the workday ended as soon as the sky started changing color, of course everyone’s inside already.

“Lord Julian?” someone asks, and he turns to see Arya sitting on a stool next to a tub of laundry. Her hands are stilled on the washboard as she stares at him for a moment. It’s been years but she hasn’t changed a bit, just a few more lines on her face from stress and hard work. She grins broadly at him and stands, approaching to wrap him in a strong hug. “We’ve missed you,” she whispers before pulling back, delicate nose wrinkled. “Let me run you a bath, before your mother sees you like this.”

Julian lets her tug him into the manor. The familiar corridors feel like a punch in the stomach. They don’t run into any other servants, and Julian can only assume that his mother cut down on staff even further once he’d left. Arya heats and pours the water quickly, and he’s halfway out of his doublet before Arya’s tutting at him and taking the cloth from his hands. He’s nearly forgotten just how many luxuries his title provides.

“Have you been bathing yourself all these years?” Arya asks with a chuckle, efficiently disrobing him. “Ooh, someone got hairy,” she says, and Julian huffs a hint of a laugh. She leads him into the wide copper tub, and he sighs at the heat. She doesn’t really stop talking as she bustles around him, pouring in salts and oils she knows he likes and keeping her voice low and soft, so it won’t carry past the room. He’s grateful for the pleasant soprano and the lilting pattern of her words.

“You got strong, too,” she says, poking at Julian’s bicep. “Didn’t think slinging a lute around would get you just as strapped as a farmer. You’re a viscount, Julian. You’re supposed to be much softer around the edges.”

Julian shrugs. Even if he were willing to open his mouth, he doesn’t know how to explain what he’s been doing all these years, why he had to learn dagger defense, why he’s had to fight and draw blood multiple times.

“Why’d you come back?” Arya asks, settling on the stool next to the tub, bar of soap in her hands—good soap, soap Julian hasn’t had access to in years, _black soap,_ not just wood ash mixed with whatever lard is cheapest. “You’ve been gone long enough that we all thought you’d stay gone. So, why’re you back now?” Arya tilts her head, holding the soap hostage until she gets an answer. Julian sighs and bites at his tongue.

He doesn’t know how to say it, he doesn’t know how to open his mouth, he doesn’t know how to demonstrate what happened without his words. He doesn’t even have his notebook anymore to write things down. Arya looks deeply concerned now that she’s noticed that he’s not talking. He taps a couple times on his chest, directly over his heart, and Arya’s face crumples.

“Oh gods, you went and got your heart broken, didn’t you?” she asks, and he nods, staring into the water rather than see her pity. His heart is pounding much too quickly. “You went and got your heart broken painfully enough to make you stop talking, oh sweet lords above,” she says, and she puts the soap down to cradle his face in her hands, pressing her forehead to his. He clenches his jaw, presses his lips together, does everything he can to keep the burning in his eyes confined, to keep the whine building in his throat stuck just there. He can’t breathe right, and takes a shaking shuddering too-fast breath, grabbing onto Arya’s wrists.

“Gods, you’re okay Julian, you’re home now, just breathe baby boy.” She matchers her breaths to his near hyperventilation and starts slowing her breaths at a pace easy for Julian to keep up with. She rubs gentle circles into his temples as he comes down, and not a single tear drops. He lets go of her wrists and pulls away, and she lets him go, pulling back and picking up the soap. He reaches for it with a slightly shaking hand and she tuts at him again.

“Stop trying to do my job for me, mister,” she says, fake scolding, a shaky smile on her face. Julian bites his lip, and she brushes his hair back from his face. “Let me take care of you,” she says softly. Julian’s heart aches fiercely at the words but he nods, closes his eyes, allows tired limbs to go loose, lets her lather him up and work strong fingers into tight muscles. She hums and haws at the tension he’s holding and the muscle he’s built up, tuts and scolds at the state of his feet, and washes his hair as gently as she’s able, working floral oil into it until it shines again. Julian always liked Arya best. She was gentle and never allowed her hands to stray, unlike other attendants who never stayed in their employ for long.

“There you are, little Julian. Just about good as new,” Arya says with her hands on her hips, smiling down at Julian. “Would you like a shave? I’ll admit, the stubble looks quite nice.” Julian shakes his head. He’s not sure he has the energy to handle a shave, or the trust required to stay still with a blade at his throat. “Alright. I’m going to go scrounge up some clean clothes for you in the proper house colors, alright? You stay right here, and I’ll be back in a moment.” She closes the door nearly silently behind her, and Julian sinks down in the tub until the water nearly touches his nose. The copper tub keeps the heat in the water much more efficiently than the wooden tubs inns usually use, and the sweet oils never smell quite the same when bought from secondhand vendors, even in large cities.

It’s been a long two weeks and he feels hollow, like someone’s taken an unfinished wooden spoon and scraped out his insides. He closes his eyes, trying to find the equilibrium he’s not sure he’s ever had.

He hears the click of the door and opens his eyes to see Arya holding an armful of cool gray silks, ranging from nearly white to not quite black. He’d nearly forgotten how drab the house colors are.

“I’ve told your mother that you’re here,” Arya says, placing the clothes down and grabbing a towel, unfolding it and holding it aloft. “She wants to see you as soon as you’re dressed, so come on. Up and at them,” she says energetically. Julian just sighs, blowing bubbles in the bath water, and Arya shakes the towel at him.

She dries him off, and it’s been so long since he left home that it feels weird now, letting someone else take care of him. The chemise is clean and softer than what he’s been able to afford while travelling, even if the embroidery and lacework is much more subdued than his usual tastes. It’s a nice cream color, with dark embroidered vines around the neck and wrists. The breeches are a darker gray than the doublet, and both are relatively plain. No intricate top stitching or artistic fabric work, simply structured garments meant to look good but blend in. The boots are black and utterly for show, they’d become a hinderance if he wanted to walk much farther than the gate of the estate.

Arya fastens the doublet up to his throat and shuffles him onto the stool before fussing with his hair, patting it dry and combing it and doing her best to force it to lay flat and not hang over his eyes.

“Your mother will probably want this cut,” she says, looking at Julian and noting his expression of discomfort. “Or, we could tell her you’re growing it out. I think you’d look rather dashing with a trim beard and long hair, rather Skelligan. There’s something quite noble in their appearance,” she says, and Julian listens to her ramble about the Skelligan merchant who’d arrived not three seasons past.

Arya pulls him up to standing and looks straight at him, frowning. She grasps his shoulders and rolls them back, forcing Julian’s spine straight. “You’re a viscount, you need to stand like one,” she says, now looking a bit up at him, and Julian nods. He’d gotten into the habit of slouching and making himself seem smaller and harmless while on the road, for more than one reason that he can’t think about right now. He’ll have to keep an eye on it, or risk his mother smacking it out of him as she did when he was seven.

“Your mother’s in the library,” she says, eyes crinkling once again into a smile. “I trust you’ll be able to find your way after all these years?”

Julian musters a small smile and nods, and she kisses him on the cheek before rushing off to finish the laundry she’d abandoned. He walks slowly through the halls toward the library, boots clicking softly on clean stone floors. The last of the sunlight is pouring through the windows and he can smell the barest hint of the nearby sea, and he never thought he’d ever be here again.

He reaches the door to the library much too soon. The door was left ajar, and Julian takes a deep breath, straightening his spine, and knocks gently on the door frame before entering the room. He stays near the door and tucks his arms behind his back.

The library is small, especially compared to the grandiosity of the Oxenfurt facilities, but still has hundreds of books that he’d never really had the chance to pour over before he was running off to college. His mother looks up from the plush armchair in the middle of the room, and Julian keeps his face neutral. Her hair has a few delicate strands of gray that she didn’t have when he left, but she wears it well. After a moment, she smiles at him, and he gives a shaky smile in return.

“Hello, Julian,” she says, soft alto voice barely carrying across the room. Julian bows from the waist, averting his gaze, and when he straightens again his mother tilts her head. “What, no warm words of welcome for your mother?” she asks, and Julian can feel his face screwing up in the familiar expression of guilt. She makes a sound in the back of her throat and stands, spreading her arms slightly. “Come _here_ , child,” she says, and Julian runs to his mother’s embrace. He tucks his head into her neck, and she passes her fingers through his hair. Julian staunchly doesn’t think about how Geralt had done the same when Jaskier had earned himself a concussion after being thrown against a tree by a water hag.

“Arya said you went off and got your heart broken. That true?” she asks. He nods against her shoulder, and she tuts at him. “You managed to hurt yourself badly enough to lose your voice in the crossfire, gods above. This is why I told you to stay, I told you this would happen, didn’t I?” she says, voice approaching anger, and Julian’s hands shake as his eyes start to burn again.

She pulls away and places his face between her hands, and he has to slouch so she can look him in the eye. “I do wish you hadn’t gone to prove me right, for years I wished nothing more than to be wrong,” she says. She brushes the tears that are starting to leak from Julian’s eyes away with gentle fingers. “Please stay,” she whispers. “Stay here, where I can keep you safe, where people won’t _leave_ you and _hurt_ you. Please,” she repeats, and Julian nods against her hands. Her face lights up with a smile, and it’s the lightest his chest has felt in years.

“Come, sit with me,” she says, pulling away to sit in one corner of the armchair, leaving just enough room for Julian. “I’ve truly missed you so.”

He sits, though there was much more space when he was sixteen and barely took up any room. His mother strokes his cheek, running through the start of a beard that had accumulated over the past two weeks. “I like this. Suits you much better than it did your father. Then again, he didn’t have much of a jawline to speak of, and you luckily inherited mine.”

Julian smiles warmly and leans his head into her hand. She presses a kiss to his hairline and settles into the chair, picking up the book she’d been reading it and angling the pages so he can read with her.


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt reaches Caingorn as the market is starting to wrap up, the late afternoon sun illuminating the vendors as they begin to pack up their wares. He’d dallied on top of the mountain—there was only one trail down, he didn’t want to run into Jaskier before they’d both had a chance to calm down. Besides, the bard would wait for him. He always did, and he’d said, “see you around.” If he wasn’t waiting for him at the start of the trail with Roach, he’d be in Caingorn, wooing a tavern for tips. Or just in the middle of the market, as it were. He can hear Jaskier playing a song he wrote a couple years ago, though his fingers are fumbling slightly on the occasional complicated riffs that have become his stylistic trademark. A woman is singing the words. Has it been long enough that Jaskier’s voice has gotten tired from waiting?

Geralt turns the corner and looks to where he can hear the lute, but Jaskier isn’t there. Just a pretty trobairitz sitting on a low wall, holding Jaskier’s lute and playing Jaskier’s song, and Jaskier’s notebook rests next to her thigh. Geralt approaches.

“Where is he?” he asks, and the woman stops playing to look at him.

“Ah, Geralt of Rivia,” she says, mouth twisting in displeasure. Geralt stares at her, and she just stares fearlessly back, beginning to strum the song that Jaskier’s been working on for a while.

“Where is Jaskier,” he growls, stepping fully into the woman’s space, though she simply tilts her head up to continue looking at him, somehow completely unafraid. Her hands still on the strings, and she frowns.

“Don’t you know what it means when a bard gifts his music to another?” she asks. Geralt just stares at her. She’ll talk on her own, all bards do. They love hearing the sounds of their own voices enough that you don’t even have to pretend to listen to keep them talking. “He’s gone,” she says, and her eyes get a bit misty. Geralt chokes back the hint of panic that wants to crawl up his throat. “He’ll not be making music anymore, and he left his songs to me so that they’ll at least still be heard.”

Geralt scoffs. He doesn’t have time for another idiot bard’s melodrama. “As if anything could get Jaskier to shut up for long,” he says, and the woman looks at him with furrowed brows, smelling faintly of anger—pine smoke and sweat.

“His last song makes sense now,” she says, strumming Jaskier’s lute again and beginning to sing.

Geralt rolls his eyes and starts to leave, but the woman stands and starts following him. He sneers at her, but she holds her ground, and he’s forced to listen to the words she’s singing, the words that Jaskier wrote.

“I’m weak my love, and I am wanting. If this is the path I must trudge, I welcome my sentence, give to you my penance; garrotter, jury and judge,” the woman sings, and Geralt stops moving. He’s not stupid, he’d noticed Jaskier pining for him over the years, but he’d hoped that by ignoring it the bard’s feelings would die out. Apparently not. He sighs. Leave it to Jaskier to do something as dramatic as give up his lute in response to a simple spat. How many times has he told the bard to leave him alone, and this is the one that he actually listens to?

He waits for the trobairitz to finish the song before turning to her. “I’ll ask you one last time. Where is Jaskier?”

“He’s gone, you fucking idiot,” she screams, clutching the lute close to her chest, tears spilling freely down her face. A few people glance over to see what the commotion is, but they keep their distance. “Jaskier is gone,” she repeats quietly. “He’s gone, and I didn’t see where the man who _used_ to be Jaskier went. With any luck he’ll be curled up near a hearth in some tavern, rather than spending the night on the road.” She turns and walks back to the town square, and Geralt frowns as she goes. What the hell does she mean, the man who used to be Jaskier?

If he knows Jaskier, and at this point he fancies he knows the bard rather well, then he’s definitely still in town. The gods know the man enjoys the finer things in life and would never pass up on a night in an inn.

By the time he’s checked every inn and tavern in the small city, night has fully set. It’s much too dark to leave town, especially with Roach. Maybe his words had been a bit too harsh on the bard. He’s young, after all. Geralt resolves to set out in the morning. If he catches up to Jaskier, then there’s no doubt that the man will once again stick to his side like glue. If not, he’ll just take contracts where he can get them. The few months before they inevitably run into each other again will be long enough for Jaskier to forget that he’d ever yelled in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: mama Pankratz is not a good person

Julian has been home for a few days, and he’s already horribly restless. Arya has resumed her role as his personal attendant, and he couldn’t be more grateful, but it’s still quite strange to be woken in the mornings by opened curtains and a gentle hand in his hair. It’s still quite strange to be dressed by someone else, to have a breakfast of fresh fruits and cheese and bread, to not be walking for hours to get to the next town or just to keep up with Geralt. He’d forgotten how little there is for a noble to do, especially when the estate is well-maintained and the serfs are happy.

It’s mid-morning and energy is thrumming through his limbs with nothing to fill his time. He’s been working steadily through the books in the library, reading for hours upon hours about the geography and politics that he already knows. Afternoon sunlight is filtering through the windows, illuminating dust on its way down to light upon the ink of the book in his hands. It’s a dry account of the rulers of Redania and their deeds through the decades.

His mother enters the room, charcoal dress dragging slightly behind her on the cold floor. She usually seeks him out once her duties managing the estate are finished. “Are you still reading?” she asks, voiced laced with scandal. “You’ll ruin your eyes at this rate. Come keep me company. We can play checkers, or that horrid dice gambling you’re so fond of,” she says with a slight roll of her eyes. Julian smiles and places his book back on the shelf before following his mother to a more comfortable room.

Julian has been home for a couple weeks, and he really just wants to get into an old-fashioned bar brawl. Not really, he doesn’t actually want to punch and be punched, but it would be a right sight better than this.

He goes to the kitchens. Their head chef is a rather portly man with a kind heart named Roger, and he looks up from the broth he’s simmering over the hearth.

“Ah, Lord Julian. Hungry?” he asks, and Julian just shakes his head. He looks around for a moment before seeing what he’s looking for, and he grabs the glass jar from the counter. He holds it up to show the chef, who squints at the foamy yeast mixture.

“Do you even know how to make bread?” he asks, not unkindly, and Julian nods. “Well, you certainly don’t need _my_ permission, go right ahead.”

Julian smiles at him and goes to get a bucket of water and the flour from the pantry. Three hours later, he’s kneading the third loaf of bread while the second loaf proofs and the first loaf bakes, and Roger looks a bit concerned but doesn’t stop him.

Roger serves the bread with fresh fish and greens for dinner. Julian and his mother eat in silence for a while before she sighs.

“I heard you spent the day making bread,” she says, sounding strained. Julian looks at her from across the table. She looks pale in contrast to her dark ash dress. “You’re not a traveling wastrel anymore, you’re a viscount and the heir to this estate. I’ll not have you seen in the kitchens like a common worker, risking callouses and burns.”

Julian looks down at his plate, appetite suddenly lost. He’d just wanted something to do, he was being careful, he hadn’t even gone near the heated cast-iron oven.

“I do not wish to confine you, my love. I simply wish to keep you safe and uninjured,” she says, and he nods without looking up.

Julian has been home for a month and his body is aching for movement, his mind desperate for a change in scenery. He walks out to the edge of their fields, right to a gnarled old oak tree that’s probably stood for well over a hundred years.

He pulls himself up, sticking to the sturdy lower branches that’ll hold his weight without protest, and looks out over the nearby town that enjoys his mother’s protection. The sunlight glistens on the sea to the north and the wind makes the grain in the fields move like the ocean waves. Not for the first time, he wishes he still had his notebook, wishes he could figure out how to open his mouth to sing, even if his mother despises loud noise.

A song writes itself in his head, and Julian aches.

Julian has been home for three months before he manages to convince his mother to send for tutors. He spends a week killing time writing out his request in traditional calligraphy, and he spends two weeks sending his mother pleading looks across the dining hall while she berates him for even daring to ask.

“Honestly Julian, you don’t need to learn swordplay, you’re safe here. The lords know we have more than enough guards in town to defend against nearly any threat. And hand-speech? I’ve never even heard of this method of communication before, what makes you think I’ll be able to find a translator for you?” She sounds horribly exasperated, and Julian stares at the hearth, pressing his lips together. Maybe she’s right. After all, he should be grateful that she even let him back in the house in the first place. He hasn’t exactly been a good son, after all. He disappeared to Oxenfurt to follow the light and noise that gives her such pain.

He looks up when she heaves a weary sigh. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says, and Julian darts out of his seat with a smile to press a grateful kiss to her cheek. “Ok, yes, I love you too, now stop being so mawkish. You’re a viscount set to inherit the lordship; you shan’t be expressing such maudlin displays while ensuring the town paupers are fed through winter.”

Julian pulls away and nods, but the smile stays on his face. It almost feels real.

Julian has been home for five months before he finally convinces his fencing instructor that he’s neither a cripple nor a charity case and that he can actually teach him useful maneuvers rather than arrogant posturing. He’s delighted when he learns that Maestro Lamarr also knows dagger fighting, and it only takes a week before Julian demonstrates that they can spar more or less as equals.

His mother’s face twists in displeasure when she sees him emerge from fencing lessons sweaty and out of breath, hair tied back messily and half falling out of the ribbon, but she doesn’t say anything. He likes to think that it’s because she can see how much he needed the exertion and distraction.

Julian has been home for eight months before he understands enough of hand-speech to carry a full-speed conversation with his mother about the preparations for the upcoming harvest.

There are the grains, obviously, but that’s just to make sure there’s more than enough for everyone through winter even if a quarter of the yield rots. Their actual money comes from the oils they distill from the field of herbs and flowers. Visitors usually come and leave without even realizing that the field exists, cleverly situated behind the manor, separated from the rest of the fields. The Pankratz family is old money and they’re a far cry from relying on that single field, but it goes a long way in making sure they can retain that money for future generations, keep the line of succession strong, continue serving the people of Lettenhove.

“Speaking of the line of succession,” his mother says casually, leaning forward to rest her folded hands on the desk between them. Her pewter gray sleeves contrast nicely with the dark wood. “I was wondering when you’d deign to use your voice again. Not that I haven’t been enjoying the peace and quiet, but I really don’t know how you expect to find a wife like this. Of course, you’re handsome enough, but you can’t live your life with a translator just because you ripped your own heart out of your chest.”

Julian rocks back slightly in his chair as his jaw locks up and his throat tightens. His hands shake a bit as he signs. “I’m not doing this on purpose, mother. I’ve tried to speak. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I honestly can’t.”

She raises a skeptical brow, lips slightly pursed, clearly projecting her skepticism. Julian wilts under her gaze, shrinking into himself while still keeping his spine straight.

“Well then,” she says after a much longer silence than necessary. “I’ll send for the healer tomorrow. Maybe she’ll be able to fix you.”

The words sink into his stomach like a stone as his face heats up. He waits for his mother’s dismissal before darting out of the room.

The next day, the healer can find nothing wrong.

The next week, the herbalist’s teas don’t work.

The week after that, the peddler from a nearby village rubs a bezoar over Julian’s throat, and nobody’s actually surprised when that doesn’t work.

The week after that, the witch from a village nearly a full day’s walk away pours magic into his neck and jaw and it feels like ants crawling under his skin, but he forces himself to stay still under his mother’s gaze.

She pulls away and takes her itching crawling buzzing magic with her, and Julian gasps silently for breath, a protective hand covering his throat. She recommends finding an Aretuza-trained mage and leaves, grateful for the half payment she received for her travel.

Julian has been home for nine months when he hears his mother talking to a woman in the hall leading to the library. He places the book on the side table before standing. May as well look presentable for the next failed attempt. He walks toward the door but freezes once he can make out what his mother is actually saying.

“I can’t host the winter celebrations like this, could you imagine? How embarrassing it would be for him, to be forced to speak through someone else. He used to be quite the womanizer, you know, but he really can’t get a wife if he can’t even speak.”

“I understand, Lady Pankratz,” the woman says, and the voice nearly sounds familiar. “If you don’t mind, I only work alone, I can’t have you in the room. It’s best for everyone if there’s… privacy.”

“Oh yes, yes of course. Do what you must. If you need me, I’ll be in the study, I have to write up a contract for that griffin. It’s getting much too close to the estate,” his mother says, and Julian can hear the tapping of her shoes on the stonework as she walks away.

The door opens and Julian recognizes purple eyes and curled black hair that have him scrambling backward in panic, heart in his chest as he trips on the rug and lands on his ass with a sharp exhalation of pain.

Yennefer’s frozen near the door, eyes slightly widened in what seems to be surprise. After a moment she closes the door behind her.

“Jaskier,” she says coolly, and Julian swallows and looks away. “Piss off another djinn, did you?”


	5. Chapter 5

Jaskier has been gone for a month when Geralt kills a graveir in a neglected crypt. 100 coins, barely enough to buy the ingredients that went into the Cat potion he drank just to see the damned thing.

Jaskier has been gone for two months when Geralt is run out of another backwards little hamlet, though not for the usual reasons. They accuse him of offending the Fae who protect their woods and insist that he leave before the fair folk rescind their favor. The bard will surely be sore that he missed seeing the story first-hand, and Geralt has no doubt that he’ll make a catchy drinking tune out of it.

Jaskier has been gone for three months when Geralt fights a noonwraith, easily keeping her contained with Yrden as he releases her soul with fire and silver. She’d been murdered by her betrothed three moons ago, who himself died in a harsh storm two moons past. There’s nothing he can do to fix the wrongs she’d been dealt, and he moves on to the next contract.

Jaskier has been gone for five months when Geralt realizes that he hasn’t heard anyone announce “the master bard Jaskier’s latest composition” in any of the countless inns or town squares he’s visited. It usually doesn’t take him much more than three months to come up with a new song that spreads like wildfire, as most annoying earworms tend to do. At least Jaskier’s earworms are generally pleasant to listen to, which is more than can be said for the sickening ballads other bards come up with.

Jaskier has been gone for eight months, and Geralt wonders when he started keeping track of the days by how long it’s been since he drove him away.

Jaskier has been gone for nine months when Geralt finds a contract notice for a griffin near Lettenhove. It looks like the lord has put out the contract well before any of his serfs fall victim while working in the fields, which is quite a nice change. He swears he’s heard the name Lettenhove before, but he’s certainly never been there. It’s only a couple days north, which will bring him rather close to Oxenfurt. Maybe he’ll run into his bard again.


	6. Chapter 6

Yennefer freezes as the man scrambles away from her, falling in his haste. He looks thoroughly startled, if not bordering on panicked, but she’s sure she’s never done anything to the Pankratz family to deserve such a reaction.

Her eyes widen slightly as her brain catches up with what she’s seeing. His hair is cleaner and smoother than she’s ever seen it, long enough that it’s tied back in a low ponytail, and the well-groomed beard changes the proportions of his face, but his wide cornflower blue eyes are the same. Obviously it’s Jaskier. She knew his last name was Pankratz, she even knew he was the Viscount of this very town, how did she overlook that? To be fair, she’d honestly thought she would never see him again.

She can’t help but categorize the differences since she’d seen him last. What’s it been, nine months? And yet he’s so thoroughly different to the pretty idiot with a sharp tongue she’d travelled up that thrice-damned mountain with. Beyond the hair and beard he’s lost his colorful plumage, traded in the bright dyes and embroidery for silks in varying shades of dark gray which must have cost a near fortune to dye. It all looks surprisingly good on him, though she’s never seen him appear quite so small. Not physically, the man is taller than she is, but something about his aura is definitely off.

She softly closes the door behind her and levels a smirk at the bard. “Jaskier. Piss off another djinn, did you?” She’s a bit surprised when he looks away and doesn’t make any attempt at nonverbal snark, a language she knows the bard is well-versed in.

“Silence really doesn’t suit you,” she says, and feels even further off balance when he doesn’t even react. “Then again, you were pretty quiet last time I saw you.” At that, Jaskier’s attention snaps back to her. Good. “Heard Geralt yelling at you all the way from the campsite, and you just let him walk all over you, just as you’ve done for years.” She hadn’t heard any response from the bard, just Geralt’s shouting. Jaskier’s face crumples in a heady mixture of frustration, indignation, confusion, and distress. Yennefer chuckles, pleased to finally get an emotional reaction.

“Alright, stand up. I don’t have all day, and insulting you is no fun when you can’t make your pitiful attempts at retribution,” she says briskly. Jaskier stands hesitantly and approaches, and he’s a good couple inches taller than she’d realized once his back is straightened out. Has he been slouched the entire time she’s known him? Yennefer can smell the nervousness coming off him even before she gently presses her fingertips to his barred throat.

Nothing in his neck is swollen and his breathing is fine, albeit elevated. He’s more tense than a man at the gallows. His jaw clenches once she pours a little bit of magic into his skin to see if there’s anything wrong on a more subtle level, but there’s nothing there either. She pulls away with a frustrated hum, and Jaskier stares at the floor, fidgeting with his sleeve.

“Well, if it’s not an issue in your throat, it’s probably an issue in your brain. Let me take a look,” she says, reaching for his face, but he swiftly moves backward, alarm written on his face. “Oh please, don’t be such a baby. I need to see what prompted your muteness so I can fix it. I’ll be gentle, promise,” she says dryly. Jaskier still looks reluctant, but he steps closer once again and lets her place her fingers on his temples.

“How embarrassing”

“Maybe she’ll be able to fix you.”

“You ripped your own heart out of your chest,”

“Not that I haven’t been enjoying the peace and quiet,”

“now stop being so mawkish,”

“I’ll not have you seen in the kitchens like a common worker,”

“I do wish you hadn’t gone to prove me right,”

“I told you this would happen, didn’t I?”

“Why’d you come back?”

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take _you_ off my hands.”

“ _That’s not fair_.”

Yennefer yanks herself out of _Julian’s_ mind, though not before she gets a rough impression of the years travelling with Geralt and the pining met with indifference, learning and eventually teaching at Oxenfurt without ever feeling accepted, sixteen years of handsy attendants and the all-too-familiar cycle of overbearing affection and disdain from a manipulative mother. Throughout it all, the bone-deep exhaustion of a man who feels too much, all the time.

Julian’s standing stock still, tears leaking out of his eyes, and Yennefer wipes them away with her thumbs before pushing him into the armchair. She perches on the armrest and lets out a heavy breath.

“Well, that’s not something I can fix with a simple spell.”


	7. Chapter 7

Julian tries not to curl up into himself. It’s just Yennefer, he already knows she hates him, but it still stings that even she’s giving up on him.

“I’m not saying it can’t be fixed,” Yennefer says with truly uncanny timing. Is she reading his thoughts? Is she still in his head? “Don’t give me that look of distrust, Julian. I’m not reading your mind. Why bother when all of your thoughts are written on your face for the whole world to see?”

Julian rolls his eyes at her, though the reminder that he’s an open book stings slightly. Oh, he could weave stories and pretty white lies all day, but the only emotion he knows how to hide is panic. That’s how Valdo Marx managed to get so deep under his skin after all, back when they were rivals. Back when Julian was Jaskier and talked too much and sang too loudly.

“I’m honestly surprised something similar didn’t happen before this. I mean, you left home, what, nearly a decade ago?” Yennefer asks, pulling Julian out of his thoughts. He nods, though he’s sure his discomfort at her knowing that shows on his face. She scoffs. “In all that time you fell in love countless times, but you never gave up your heart. No, you handed it over to a foolish brute, a man you named wolf, and you’re surprised he decided to bite.”

Julian bares his teeth at her, pushing out of the chair to give the heat and hurt in his veins something to do. He tries to take a breath, calm down, keep the burning in his throat and eyes at a reasonable level. He fails and bubbles over like an overboiled pot.

“You don’t get to fucking say that,” he says with his hands in tight, rapid movements, and Yennefer’s brows raise slightly. “You loved him too, I know you did, you don’t get to call me an idiot for loving him when you did the same.” His hands clench into fists as he realizes that she probably didn’t understand any of that. He drops his hands and heaves a sigh, anger draining out of him and leaving him exhausted. Yennefer tilts her head to the side.

“I never loved him,” she says, and Julian’s too astonished that she just happens to know hand-speech that he doesn’t bother trying to refute her. “A djinn forced me to think I did, but I never loved him. Not truly, not like you did.”

Julian swallows and forces his hands to move. “Do,” he signs, a simple enough correction to Yennefer’s statement, and she frowns in bewilderment.

“You _still love him?_ ” she asks, and he nods sadly. “You’re even more of a fool than I thought you were,” she says, and he looks at her with a frown. “He hurt you-”

“He was right,” he signs, and Yennefer cuts herself off as if he was actually talking. “I followed him around and annoyed him for years, dragging him into one mess after another, of course he’d had enough of me.”

Yennefer’s lips press into a thin line and her eyes look tired. “Sit back down,” she says with surprising softness. Julian obeys, keeping as close to the armrest opposite of where she sits as possible. Yennefer is turned nearly entirely toward him, and he can feel her gaze on the back of his neck as he stares at his lap.

“I am truly surprised that your voice wasn’t lost earlier with how poorly Geralt treated you,” she says. Julian moves to stand again but her hand grasps his shoulder and forces him back down with strength he never would have thought she’d have. Why has he made a habit of pissing off people who are strong enough to kill him effortlessly?

“You’re sitting here until I’m finished,” she says sternly, and Julian tries not to curl into himself. She keeps her hand on his shoulder, but at least she’s just resting it there, not pressing down or squeezing to rub in the fact that he can’t move. “He doesn’t deserve your love, not after hurting you so badly that you stopped being able to speak.”

Julian finally turns his head to look at her, squinting in confusion. Yennefer purses her lips like she’s trying to pick the right words.

“He’s belittled you and treated you like a dog for years, and you stuck by his side, voice no worse for wear, but that stress built up. Him yelling and _wrongfully_ blaming you for his actions made a defensive mechanism in your brain slam into gear. No more talking, because to that mechanism, talking is what got you into trouble, talking is what hurt you. It wasn’t Geralt who hurt you, it couldn’t possibly be Geralt, you _love_ Geralt,” she finishes sarcastically, lip turning up into a sneer that betrays exactly what she thinks of the situation.

Julian huffs and breaks eye contact, shoving her hand off his shoulder and turning away. He leans an elbow on the armrest in forced nonchalance, propping up his chin with a fist and staring at a bookshelf with a deep frown. Her words sting, just as they’re meant to, just as they always do. He bites his tongue and forces himself to think through her words. He doesn’t turn to look at Yennefer, simply moves his hands to where she can see them.

“What do you mean by…” Julian signs, faltering when he realizes that he has no idea how to sign ‘defensive mechanism’. “What’s in my head?” he asks instead. “What’s wrong with me?”

Yennefer lets out a slow breath. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You feel too much all the time, you’re a slave to your emotions. In fact, were you able to conduct chaos, you would be an immensely powerful mage.”

Julian turns his head just enough to look at her, squinting with skepticism. She’s never been one to soften things with lies and false compliments. She turns away.

“It’s inescapable,” she says quietly, inspecting the rug. “You were born with it, and it will be with you until the day you die, and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do to get rid of it. It’s why you feel so strongly that you have to move to get it out, why you have to keep yourself busy lest you crawl out of your own skin, why you get stuck writing songs for hours on end and forget to eat, why you can’t open your mouth to speak. And the kicker is, nobody’s bothered giving it a name yet.”

Julian turns to look at Yennefer fully and she meets his gaze. His heart is thumping way too loudly in his chest, and Yennefer just looks resigned. At least there’s no pity in her eyes, but that doesn’t stop Julian’s breath from getting faster and catching in his throat. He stands from the chair and Yennefer lets him go. He walks over to a window and stares out the warped glass at the fields below, wrapping his arms around himself and trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he’s trapped with this nameless thing for the rest of his days, that he as a person is fundamentally _wrong._

“You’re not wrong, just different,” Yennefer says, voice thick with some kind of emotion that Julian doesn’t have the energy to identify. He whirls around to face her, eyes wide and face hot.

“Leave my head!” he signs with harsh movements.

“I’m not in your head, you’re projecting,” Yennefer retorts loudly. “It’s not my fault if I pick up what you’re basically yelling!”

Julian opens his mouth slightly as if to retort verbally, but it feels like something squeezing his throat. He clenches his jaw and fists and resists the urge to stomp like a child. He forces a deep breath, falling into one of the breathing exercises taught at Oxenfurt, and doesn’t that make him ache something fierce. He sinks to the stone floor, back against the wall, one leg sticking out and the other tucked closer to his body. He pinches the bridge of his nose and keeps breathing with his eyes closed.

After a few moments of silence, he hears Yennefer rise from the armchair. Her shoes click on the stone once she leaves the small circle of the rug, a slow clack as she approaches. He expects her to just stare down at him in disappointment, but instead she sits to his left, far enough that her skirts don’t touch him but close enough that he can smell her distinct perfume.

“I can tell you that you’ll sing again,” she says quietly, and Julian drops his hand into his lap and tilts his head to look at her. “If you want, given time you can be Jaskier again. But you must let go of the guilt, Julian. It isn’t yours, don’t carry it for a man who never loved you back.”

Julian winces like she’d slapped him. Honestly, she might as well have. He’s too tired to get angry again, he thinks, and he just bites his lip. “I can’t,” he signs. He’s never been able to let a single thing go, not in his entire life. “I don’t know how.”

There’s a brief knock on the door before it opens, Arya poking a cautious head in. “Milady sent me to get you. Supper is ready, and you are very welcome to share it, Lady Yennefer.”

Yennefer nods with a brief word of thanks and waves her off, and the door closes once again.

“Do you truly still love him?” she asks, seemingly out of nowhere, and Julian nods slowly. “Are you certain?” He frowns at her, simply wondering what her point is. “I need you to think about it. If Geralt were to show up in a couple days, completely unannounced, would you forgive him for pushing you away? Or would you just be scared that he’ll hurt you again?” She stands without waiting for an answer and Julian watches her leave the room, his world crashing down around his ears in complete silence.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: horrible mother, mentions of corporal punishment

“Well?” Lady Pankratz asks as soon as the food has been served. Julian can’t bring himself to look at the hope in her eyes.

“I’m afraid it’s a rather complicated curse that’s been laid on your son,” Yennefer lies smoothly. Julian glances at her out of the corner of his eye but keeps his face passive. “It’ll take time to unravel it safely.”

Julian wishes his mother would start eating so the rest of the table can join. It’s impolite to eat before the head of the house does and he’s hungry. So is Yennefer, judging by the subtle glances at her plate.

“How do you mean safely?” his mother asks, frowning in concern, hands folded in her lap and giving no indication of beginning the meal any time soon.

“If it’s forced the curse can simply grab a stronger hold and shut down more of his body, or even break his mind entirely,” Yennefer says, and his mother brings a delicate hand to her chest.

“Well. Julian’s always been a little bit mad, running off into danger at the first opportunity, but I would appreciate his mind staying intact,” she says, and she finally picks up her silverware to cut into the venison on her plate. Julian and Yennefer both wait until she takes a bite before daring to touch their own silverware.

Julian feels a gentle brush against his mind, barely even there, and his hands freeze when he hears Yennefer’s voice murmur, _well that was rude_. He looks at her, but she only spares him a glance before turning back to his mother.

“I’ll need to come back daily to continue unravelling the curse,” she says. Julian squints at her, then ducks his head to squint at his food. Why is she lying? She can’t actually help him, she said so herself. Besides, they hate each other, don’t they?

“You’re more than welcome to stay here, if you wish,” his mother offers, but Yennefer shakes her head.

“I’ve already secured lodgings in town but thank you. I’ll need to gather supplies to continue the treatment, I wouldn’t want to bother you by heading out at odd hours for herbs,” she says, and his mother nods in understanding.

“Very well. Though I doubt you could bother me any more than Julian did when he was young. Such a loud child, he was, always giving me migraines,” she says, a hint of fond exasperation in her voice. Julian steadily chews the seasoned meat in his mouth. “He really only quieted down once I sent him off to temple school,” she continues.

They beat literacy into him with a cane, kept him quiet and right-handed and polite. Julian swallows, showing no sign of discomfort, though Yennefer shifts in her seat and glances at him. He wonders if he’d inadvertently shouted that memory. She’d never picked up on his thoughts before, or at least she never said that she did. It seems like something she’d bring up to lord over him, and he knows he’s thought about things much worse than a cane rapped against knuckles in her vicinity.

“How old was he?” Yennefer asks, the picture of polite false interest.

“Oh, about fourteen, I think.”

 _You were just a child, that’s not fair_ , Yennefer whispers in his mind, a bit shakily. Outwardly, she simply adjusts her grip on her fork and forces a tight smile. Julian stares openly at her, wondering why on earth she’s being so defensive of him. His mother isn’t lying, he was an absolute menace when he was a child, unable to stay quiet or still for more than a few minutes at a time.

“But after that, he became absolutely obsessed with poetry,” his mother says with no small amount of disdain. “Carried a notebook around everywhere, spitting out half baked couplets and humming incessantly,” she says, looking vaguely queasy at the memory of his rhymes.

 _That’s not fair_ , Yennefer murmurs. Julian stares at his plate. Sure, she’s being a bit harsh, but he really was shit when he first started writing.

“All in an attempt to get into the pants of a common fletcher in town,” his mother says, seemingly content to carry on the conversation by herself, but Julian looks up sharply.

“I loved her,” he signs before remembering that they’d given his translator a day off. His mother has been picking up bits and pieces over the months, and she gives him a pitying look that makes him want to throw something.

“Oh please, you’ve never loved anyone. You just get infatuated with the idea of someone and move on once you’ve used them up.”

 _That’s not fair_ , Yennefer says. Julian’s heart is pounding and he’s fucking exhausted, too tired to rebuke his mother’s words. Why is Yennefer doing this, why is she parroting his words back to him, not fair not fair _not fair_

“You’ve always loved me, though,” his mother says, smiling warmly at him from across the table. “Always a mama’s boy, even if you made my head hurt.” Julian can’t help that the words make him feel warm. Yennefer looks at him with a slight frown. She turns to his mother and twists her face into a familiar smile—he’s seen it aimed at himself enough times to know that her patience is running thin.

“I should mention,” she says calmly. “Unraveling a curse this strong that’s been allowed to go without treatment for so long will be thoroughly exhausting for Julian, if not outright painful.” She’s smiling like a predator, and his mother blinks a couple times. Julian picks at the nearly faded lute calluses on his fingers and waits for the room to explode.

“Do what you must,” his mother says with the airs of a monarch making a difficult decision. “I’ll not have my son suffering from lack of voice any longer.” Julian smiles at his plate. She doesn’t show it much, but she does care. “He’ll need to find a wife soon, after all. He’s nearly a quarter of a century old, and no noblewoman in her right mind would take a mute,” she says before taking a bite of asparagus. Julian sighs and tries to ignore the pain behind his ribs with a mouthful of wine.

Yennefer shoots him a meaningful look, and he pretends not to have seen. They dine in blessed silence for a while, and Julian wants to scream and crawl out of his skin but he cannot physically do either of those things so he just presses his left thumbnail into his fingertips as he focuses on his food rather than the weight of the silence on his chest. He still can’t feel anything in his fingertips, but he knows if he were to pick up a lute again, they’d start to hurt before he finished a single song.

“Have you dealt with anything like this before?” Julian’s mother asks and he really wishes she hadn’t because some nights he can still taste the blood in his mouth as he struggled to breathe through the attack of a djinn.

“A couple times, actually. One was a young girl who had been, for lack of better phrasing, cursed from birth. She could speak perfectly well, but the only person she could actually speak to was her twin brother. I figured out that her… curse made it so that she could only speak to people that her mind deemed safe,” she says, looking at Julian. He shifts uncomfortably. He’s nearly out of wine and nowhere near the tipsy that he wants to be. “It was of course a bit more complex than that, as she couldn’t speak to her own parents.”

His mother gasps in horror at the mere thought. “Not even her own parents? Why in the world didn’t she think them safe?”

Yennefer takes a sip of wine and Julian finds he can’t break eye contact. She breaks it to look at his mother to keep up the pretense that she’s actually talking to her. “It turns out her mother was neglectful, barely even present in the house unless there was some sort of social function. Not to mention that her father was a mean drunk, belittling the twins and placing undue blame on them for every little misfortune.”

Julian’s mother listens to the story with rapt attention, and he drains his wineglass. He understands the point of her story but by the gods, was it necessary? He doesn’t care at the moment, he just wants this dinner to end so he can sleep off the emotional turmoil of the day. He gets it, he fucking gets it, but there’s no processing happening. No, that’ll happen tomorrow, once he wakes up feeling as though he got no sleep, just as he has for the last few years.

Yennefer glances at him to make sure he knows what she’s saying, and he simply glares. She may not be loving, but she’s still his damn mother. What exactly does she want him to do? He’s the heir to the estate and she’s the head of house. Yennefer presses her lips together and if Julian didn’t know better, he’d say she looks nearly apologetic.

“That would be a better curse to have,” his mother says with forced cheer. “Then my Julian would still be able to speak with me, isn’t that right, love?” she asks. Julian looks at her and halfheartedly manages a shaky smile.

“Once she was separated from the guilt and the abuse, the curse resolved itself. She lives a normal life, even has a family of her own,” Yennefer says, finishing her tale. Julian wouldn’t really call it a story, more a heavy barstool being swung into his spine.

He manages to ignore the small talk for a while, and mercifully his mother actually notices that he hasn’t looked up from his plate in the past five minutes. She fusses over him and Yennefer reminds her that he was tired from the work undoing his curse. He’s sent off to bed, though he makes a detour to the kitchens to grab a full bottle of wine.

And if that wine just seems to make him feel worse and worse with every cup, that’s his own business.


	9. Chapter 9

Geralt arrives in Lettenhove around midday, immediately heading to the large estate on the hill overlooking the town. He hops off Roach's back, trusting her to not wander off, before he enters the estate proper. As he passes through the gates it strikes him how quiet the place is. Usually estates, especially ones that rely on serf labor, are relatively rowdy with the noise of general life, but everyone here seems subdued even before they notice him.

A house servant hanging up laundry notices him. Her eyes widen and she darts into the manor. He walks slowly, and she quickly returns, followed by what must be the lady of the house. She’s wearing gray silks, and he intimately knows the price of true black dye. Selling monster ichor to tailors garners a pretty penny after all, but only if he can collect it before it dries into useless sticky gunk.

Her hair is swept into an updo, brunette with a few streaks of matronly gray to speak to her years as well as a few lines on her face, but his stomach drops a bit when he sees her eyes. Cornflower blue, the same shade that he hasn’t seen for the better part of a year.

“Don’t get many contracts for things that haven’t killed anyone yet, especially not from nobles,” he says gruffly, and the lady’s mouth quirks up in a humorless smile. She has the same eyes and a similar set of her jaw, but that’s where the similarities stop.

“Were my husband still alive, I’ve no doubt the fool would let the damn thing eat half our people before hiring a professional. Thankfully my son only inherited half of that man’s idiocy.” Well, shame on him for assuming the contract was set by the lord of the estate.

“Which half?” he asks dryly.

“The reckless one,” she responds. “Two hundred and fifty crowns for the griffin’s head,” she says, and Geralt’s eyebrows rise at the surprisingly reasonable offer.

“Three hundred,” he says.

“Two seventy-five.”

He extends a gloved hand to shake and her grip is surprisingly firm. “You’re sure it’s a griffin?” he asks. He can never be too careful with a hunt. The noblewoman nods.

“Saw it myself. Flew in from the woods to the east just a couple days ago, made a couple passes at our hunter Denhard until he ran close enough to the walls and the thing flew away. Bird head, lion body, scream that triggered a three-hour migraine,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest and looking for all the world like the gravest offence the griffin could have committed was causing a headache. “It’s lucky Julian was inside taking his fencing lesson, otherwise he might’ve been out there. He likes to climb the old tree and stare at the ocean, gods know why,” she says with a roll of the eyes. Clearly an old argument that Geralt has absolutely no interest in.

“Keep people out of that field for a few days until I can track it back to its nest,” he says, already turning to leave the estate. He has enough hybrid oil to coat his blade and enough Tawny Owl to keep his stamina going long enough to actually bring down the beast, even if he has to hit it with Aard a dozen times to keep it on the ground. He takes his supplies from the saddlebags and gives Roach a few pats, leaving her to graze and drink her fill from the small streams that irrigate the fields. She'll be more than fine on her own, and he doesn't quite have the coin to leave her with a stablehand. 

He crosses the empty fields—harvest was last month, and the serfs are safely behind the walls of the estate, but the hunter still has his duties to fulfill. He takes a deep breath when he reaches the start of the trees. It’s a pain in the ass to track flying beasts, but he’s confident he’ll be able to find it within a couple days. If the lady of the house listens to him, nobody should even be in any danger.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: very brief suicidal thought - one of the lyrics that Yennefer recalls.

Upon returning to the estate, Yennefer passes a man in the hallway carrying both a wooden sword and wooden dagger, still wearing the cloth armor of a fencing tutor. He’s rubbing his shoulder and muttering under his breath. She can nearly smell the bruises blooming on his skin under the heavy padding.

Julian’s always looked quite slim with high waisted pants and fitted doublets, especially with his habit of looking helpless and non-threatening. He would look even smaller standing next to Geralt, shorter and thinner and thus clearly a small, weak man. The only time Yennefer had seen him out of a doublet, she’d been a bit distracted by her attempt to capture a djinn and thus hadn’t really paid attention, but she was clearly wrong if he’s strong enough to give bruises through a good few centimeters of padded armor.

She enters the door the Maestro had left open and looks around at the training room. It’s nearly empty, save for a few armor and weapon racks and two men. She can hear Julian’s heavy breathing even with his back turned as he hangs up his sword, and the man who she assumes to be his translator leans against the far wall.

“You’re not needed,” she says to him, and Julian turns to look at her with widened eyes. The translator looks to Julian, waiting for a dismissal. He nods, and the man quickly leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Julian peels off his gloves, keeping an eye on Yennefer as she approaches.

“Didn’t know you knew how to fight,” she says just to break the silence. Julian rolls his eyes and starts untying his armor with one hand, using the other to sign.

“Hello Yennefer, nice to see you too Yennefer, oh my day has been marvelous, thank you so much for asking,” he signs. Still trying to catch his breath, he hoists the armor over his head. He freezes halfway through with a hiss of pain but emerges and allows it to fall on the floor with a dull whump, holding a hand to the back of his head. His hair tie must have gotten caught, as his hair is loose and slightly curled, sticking to the sweat on his face and neck. He was only wearing a tunic underneath his armor and it’s half untucked and darkened with the evidence of his exertion. The neck of the garment is loose and untied, and for the first time Yennefer can see, even under the thick chest hair, the muscle definition of his chest and shoulders that speak of much more than a year of training.

“You might be down a fencing tutor, he was looking quite sore,” she says, and Julian scoffs.

“His fault for not listening. If he wants to keep trying to teach me things I already know, then I’ll keep kicking his ass while sparring,” he signs, looking completely unapologetic if not downright smug.

Yennefer just shakes her head with a smile and reaches into the purse on her belt, pulling out the ring she’d bought the day before. It’s a thick silver band that curls up at the edges, keeping a thinner band in place while still allowing it to spin freely. She reaches out to grasp his right hand and slides the ring onto his index finger before moving back out of his space. She doesn’t want to overwhelm, especially since she’d definitely gone too far last night.

Julian looks at the ring, then back at her with a confused frown.

“It’s a spinner ring,” she says. She’s quite glad that her poker face has become nearly impenetrable over the years. Had she not already known him she might have delighted in disheveling Julian further, seeing how far she could unravel him. He looks at her with such pretty blue eyes in confusion, face still flushed from the exertion of his fencing lesson, and she begins to wonder if she has a kink for people who know how to fight, or maybe just a competency kink. “Gives your fingers something to do if you’re trying to focus, to occupy the part of your mind that constantly needs new stimulus,” she explains, and Julian blinks at her. The corners of his mouth pinch like he’s suppressing a smile. He flicks the ring with his thumb and the band spins with a barely audible metallic rattle, and Yennefer watches him lose the fight against his own expression.

He sobers quickly and looks up from the ring. “This doesn’t make up for staying in my head through dinner,” he signs, and Yennefer nods.

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” she says, and Julian looks completely baffled. “Oh please, I’m not heartless,” she snaps, irate. “I know when I’ve overstepped.”

Julian looks appropriately abashed, and she opens a small portal to her room at the town’s best inn. She reaches in and grabs the paper-wrapped package she’d left on the desk, pulling it out and closing the portal. She hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise by having it when she walked in. Julian tilts his head in confusion, and she holds it out to him. He just looks at it for a moment before reaching out to take it.

He glances up at her repeatedly as he unfolds the paper, revealing the high-quality notebook that she’d nearly walked past while searching for the ring. “I heard hints of new songs,” she says. They were scary snippets, with lines like _give me back my heart_ and _can’t you hear that scratching_ and _just let me die_. “Thought you might like someplace to write them down,” she says. Julian holds the notebook with hands that shake slightly, and she hopes to the gods she didn’t just fuck everything up. “I know I overstepped last night, I pushed too hard, but this is not me trying to force you into anything, I just think it’ll be better if it’s not all stuck in your head—"

Yennefer cuts herself off as Julian darts forward into her space and wraps his arms around her. She can’t actually remember the last time somebody hugged her, so it takes her a moment before she places a palm flat on Julian’s shoulder blade. He’s damp and smells like flowers and sweat, but it’s… nice.

He pulls away, looking sheepish. They both look at the door when they hear footsteps sprinting past and Arya calling for Lady Pankratz as loudly as she dared. A moment later, the footsteps cross the hall again, at a much more reasonable rate. Julian frowns in confusion, and Yennefer turns her attention to the grounds of the estate.

Her stomach drops when she recognizes the pull, the insistent little _tug_ that she’s been staunchly ignoring and outright avoiding for three seasons. Why the actual fuck is Geralt here, of all places? Sure, Lady Pankratz had put out a contract, but why couldn’t it have been literally any other witcher? She turns to Julian at the same time as he turns to her.

“Do you think that griffin got closer? Mother said it’s been staying within the bounds of the woods and that everyone’s safe, but… can you tell? Is anyone hurt?” he signs, and Yennefer keeps her expression calm. From what Lady Pankratz had told her, the griffin has been encroaching on the eastern field for weeks, inching ever closer to the walls of the manor. She guesses she can understand a mother wanting to keep her anxious son calm, though it still sets her teeth on edge. It’s really not her place though, she’d tried to fix things yesterday and look how well that went. And it’s not like Julian really leaves the house all that often.

“No one’s injured, as far as I can tell,” she says. She’ll not let Julian know that Geralt is here, he doesn’t need that stress. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but I can tell it wasn’t worth all that commotion,” she says dryly, not even actually lying.

Julian visibly relaxes, and Yennefer realizes that the fool actually, wholeheartedly trusts her. No wonder he’d managed to get his heart shattered so thoroughly, trusting people like that. It’s a damned miracle he hadn’t gotten himself killed.

“Come along, Julian,” she says, walking backward toward the door. “Let’s get to the kitchens while your mother is distracted. I’d wager you’ve been a tad isolated these last months, and I refuse to catch you up on court gossip without at least some Est Est.”

Julian’s eyes light up at the promise of information, but his smile is incredulous. “It’s just past midday,” he signs in protest, but he follows anyway.

The house chef, Roger, keeps them well supplied with bread and cheese, eyes crinkling at the sight of Julian’s smile. Yennefer laughs at Julian’s sharp wit and sharper insights not at all dulled through the lack of sound, and Julian makes small glottal noises in the back of his throat, the movement of a chuckle without the vocalization. Yennefer is very nearly impressed that he can still laugh after what he’s gone through, what he’s still going through.

She really can’t deny the satisfaction of a pet project smoothly improving. That’s all this really is, after all. A curiosity, a pretty bauble, a little bird with a broken wing in need of a splint. She doesn’t pity him, gods no, everyone knows that Yennefer of Vengerberg spits on pity. She just wants the satisfaction of fixing something broken ~~not broken, just a little bit askew~~. If that gets her someone to gossip with over wine in the process, if she gets to keep Geralt’s bard for herself after all’s said and done, all the better.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: descriptions of dead things, violence against animals? technically? Are griffins considered animals?

Geralt tracks the Griffin until the sky goes pale with the very beginnings of daylight, working tirelessly and paying no heed to the passage of time or the visibility of the environment. The moon is nearly full and the night cloudless and clear, he has more than enough light to work with. Not to mention that he’s literally been created for relentless tracking, functioning on no sleep and minimal food and water for up to a solid week without a significant loss of effectiveness. It’s not exactly pleasant, but it’s doable.

Tracking any flying monster is always a pain, but at least griffins are big and smelly and noisy. This one’s been in the area long enough to leave persistent marks in the forest with increasing frequency the closer he gets to its nest. He can really only hope it’s not a mated pair, a single griffin is hard enough to take on solo.

He knows he’s within a kilometer of the nest when he starts to smell the pungent, pervasive scent of decomposition. No words can describe the stench of years upon years of meal scraps rotting in the sun, piling up near the nest as a warning, a marking of territory. Not to mention that monster nests typically smell like Death himself threw up into a mound of twigs and dirt anyway.

Geralt had been forced to move slowly while tracking, occasionally hitting false leads and dead ends, but as far as he could tell the nest wasn’t actually all that far from the estate, especially considering that griffins generally fly faster than a horse can run. If pressed, he could probably get back to the estate within an hour or two. From what he can smell, the griffin must have been here for over a decade. Why is it only now creeping closer to threaten the humans?

He moves silently through the woods, following his nose toward the atrocious smell. Jaskier had thrown up the first time he caught the scent of a week-old corpse, and nearly threw up again when Geralt reminded him that his own nose was many times more sensitive than any human’s. His stomach had hardened quickly, though he still pulls faces when things get gross.

Not the time. He cannot be distracted by absentee bards at the moment. Wherever Jaskier is, he’s not in danger of getting ripped apart by a griffin like Geralt currently is, and he needs to focus.

The griffin’s nest lays on top of a hill. It’s nearly a cliff, rocky and easily climbable, and sun-bleached bones litter the ground with increasing frequency as he climbs. The scent of death is even stronger than usual, and Geralt steels himself for the sight of a fresh corpse.

He can see the griffin’s feathers curled up in the nest, unmoving. The griffin’s leftovers are all a couple weeks old at the freshest, and Geralt frowns.

He inches closer to the nest, closer to the griffin, and the beast doesn’t make a single move. He steps into the wide, shallow bowl of the nest, and the beast still doesn’t move.

It’s not breathing. He can’t hear a heartbeat. The smell of the two-week dead monster is no comfort. He scans the sky, then lets his guard loosen up as he approaches the griffin’s corpse.

A young female archgriffin, judging by the feathers. Old enough to have a mate, and Geralt would bet the rest of his coin that her partner, blinded by grief, is the one attempting to terrorize the town. He checks her torso and curses under his breath.

Two arrows, sticking out of her body. One at the joint of her wing, so she couldn’t have been shot more than a half kilometer from the nest at most. The other right into her ribs, probably piercing a lung. A slow death, choking on her own blood as her mate can do nothing but watch. He curses again. He should have tracked down the hunter and asked questions, the man could have pointed him right to the nest and Geralt could have cursed him in person for his stupidity. In trying to rid the forest of a griffin, he merely painted a target on the entire estate.

His ears pick up on the beat of large wings hoisting a heavy body, the slow flapping approaching the nest. He grabs the potion vial from his belt and yanks out the cork with his teeth, downing the Tawny Owl and shuddering slightly as his heart skips a beat before starting up at double pace. He draws his silver sword and turns as the griffin flies close enough to see the intruder in his nest. He clenches his teeth through the head-splitting roar the beast lets out and waits for it to get within striking distance.

It swoops in for what it thinks will be an easy kill, and Geralt hits it with Aard and easily sidesteps the feathered body slamming into the nest. He brings up Quen just in time to catch the acid spat by the recovering creature, the green dripping off the sphere of the shield before it retreats to hug his skin like a golden glove. He assumes a defensive stance as the griffin gets its up, reluctant to move out of melee distance. The fuckers can tackle with enough force to easily kill a man, but so long as he stays close and keeps it on the ground, it should be fine.

He parries a sharp talon that would have thrown him out of the nest, even with the Quen shield taking the brunt of the impact. The griffin easily dodges the counterattack, and Geralt doesn’t waste the breath to curse as he uses the momentum of the swing to attack again. This time, his sword meets resistance, and he allows a small smirk as the griffin starts to back away, blood dripping from its wing.

It screams, the sound bouncing around in Geralt’s skull as the griffin gets too close too quickly. It swipes with a hind leg, shattering the Quen, and its beak gets much too close to Geralt’s eyes before he manages to jump back to give himself just enough space to bring his sword down at the thing’s face. The griffin screams as the oil and silver burns its face and the hole where its eye used to be.

It takes a step back, making a chattering sound with its beak. It seems to appraise Geralt, and before he can step forward to strike again it throws itself off the edge of the nest, wings shakily catching air but holding even as blood drips from its injured wing. Not injured enough, clearly. Geralt wishes for a crossbow as it quickly escapes the range for an effective Aard, and he curses up a storm as he clambers down from the rocky hilltop as quickly as he can without injuring himself.

The griffin’s flying slowly, thank the gods, and Geralt starts jogging to keep it in his sights. It’s too high up to hit with a sign, and the best he can do is follow it until it lands sooner or later. He just really wishes it wasn’t heading west.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: panic attack

Julian taps the nib of his quill against the page as he thinks, the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly as he struggles with the timing. He’s gotten most of the words out of his head, though the rhyme scheme is still sketchy at best, but he can workshop them later. He’d hoped that the words would be content to exist as poems, but he’s quickly realizing that they won’t rest until they’re set to music. This will be the most complex project he’s ever worked on.

Every single song requires two voices and finding two singers who can get along long enough for even a single song is a challenge. Not to mention that these songs will need… so many instruments. The number ranges from an acceptable two to an unheard of eight, and they’re not even common instruments. I mean, really. Where on the continent is he going to find someone who specializes in the bloody harpsichord?

Not that he’s going to do anything with these songs. He can’t, after all. Even if he had the confidence to march to Oxenfurt and shove his compositions at anyone who will look at them (which would be quite a few people), he’s not Jaskier anymore. And even if he were, the songs are really just too much, too weird, too aggressive and dark and painful. Nobody would want to play them, even if he managed to get enough people together, even if he managed to find a violinist and a flautist and a cellist and two separate lute players and a drummer and someone to play the fucking _hurdy gurdy_.

The ink stains the page in a circular blot, bled out from where his nib rests on the page. Julian mouths a silent “shit” and lifts the page up away from the notebook, so the rest of the pages don’t get stained as well. Thankfully there hadn’t been too much ink in the nib, and the rest of the pages seem to be fine.

He holds the page aloft to let the ink dry and stares up at the sky, morning light filtering through the leaves of the tree where he sits nestled in the branches. The shadows of the leaves dance and move across the cream of the notebook pages mesmerizingly.

He’s always loved writing in this tree. It’s far enough away from the manor that his mother can’t scoff at the return of the ever-present notebook, can’t sneer at the ink stains on his fingers. Besides, this tree is a better writing surface than some desks he’s had to work on. There’s even a smaller branch that holds his book at the perfect height, even if he has to twist his torso slightly to write properly. Much better than the times he’s had to prop the book on his knees while camping in the middle of nowhere.

Although, he’s not sure he’ll have this tree for much longer. Yesterday, Yennefer had pulled him close just before she left, whispering the words “you can’t heal here” before leaving, showing no hint of the amount of wine they’d consumed. And she’s right, he knows she is, but it’s still painful. He only came back because this was the only place he could think of where he’d be accepted without his voice.

He thinks he’ll ask her to help him leave when she visits today. She could make a portal and take them out of the manor without his mother even knowing, and they could be hours away before she noticed that he was missing. Or it could be just him, travelling alone again. He doesn’t want to impose on Yennefer, he knows she must have much more important things to do than babysit him.

But gods, he wants to heal. He wants to move on from Geralt, give his voice a chance to recover. Maybe he can still travel like he used to even without his voice, trading and selling information. After all, who would suspect a mute of being a spy? He leans back against the trunk of the tree with a sigh, watching the hints of wispy white clouds traverse the sky between the leaves.

The unfortunately familiar scream of an angry griffin catches his attention, and he sits up sharply to look toward the woods to the east. The griffin bursts out from the tree line, taking branches with it as it drops to the ground, apparently already wounded. It turns back to the woods to scream, and who comes running with his sword raised but Geralt of _fucking_ Rivia.

Julian presses himself further against the tree. He’s relatively safe here, especially with the griffin on the ground. It would have to break through branches thicker than he is just to get close enough, if it even notices that he’s here. Geralt, however… he probably already knows he’s here. He can probably hear his heartbeat or smell the panic that’s building in his chest because Geralt is _here_ and he isn’t supposed to be, the witcher wanted him off his hands after all, and this is rather directly in his hands at the moment. Fuck.

He really wishes he wasn’t here, anywhere else would do, anywhere but watching Geralt fight an archgriffin (and he hates that he knows that it can spit venom). He can barely breathe past the pounding of his heart and the panic in his throat. Shit, he actually can’t breathe well at all. He needs to run, get away, otherwise Geralt will find him and yell at him for being stupid and getting too close and he can’t move because his whole body is locked up in place and he can’t _breathe_ why can’t he just _breathe, why can’t he_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: animal (?) death

Geralt curses again as the sharp scent of fear—no, the sharp scent of _panic_ hits his nose. Today’s just a cursing day, he guesses. He stays on the offensive, each cut burning the griffin and weakening it further, and he blocks out the heartbeat of the griffin to focus on the too-rapid rhythm of a scared human.

They’re in the—why the fuck did they climb the tree? Who climbs a tree to hide from a _flying griffin?_ He spares a glance at the tree and catches a hint of dark gray silks nearly hidden in the shadows. Of course it’s the lady’s son, did he not care that she told him to stay out of the field? Or had she neglected to tell him entirely?

Geralt refocuses on the fight. The nobleman will be safe in the tree, the branches are more than enough protection, he doesn’t need to think about him. The griffin moves to swipe at him again, opening up its left side for attack, and Geralt plants his feet to get the most strength he can out of the movement, bringing the sword down on and through the griffin’s shoulder, carrying the momentum into a pirouette to cut deep into the neck, severing the spinal column. The beast drops to the ground and Geralt frees his sword, looking down at his kill.

The _thump_ of a falling body makes him look up in time to see the back of a head as the nobleman scrambles to his feet and starts running at full speed back to the manor. Geralt scoffs. At least he had enough sense to wait until the griffin fell before he started running, even if it doesn’t look like he’s realized the danger’s over. He runs the entire way to the walls of the manor, a distance most would struggle with even with the help of adrenaline.

Geralt looks back toward the griffin but a hint of light cream against the brown dirt catches his eye. A notebook, lying open to a blank page under the tree. Probably belongs to the nobleman. Fuck, he’s already forgotten his name. Whatever, he’ll just bring it back with the head. He sheathes his sword and brings out his hunting knife and begins meticulously cutting away the skin, sinew, and muscle tissue still keeping the head on the body. Once it’s free, he puts away his knife and peels off his left glove, tucking the bloodied leather into his belt. He grasps the griffin’s mane with his right hand and lifts it from the ground. It’s a heavy fucker, but he’s more than able to get it up to the estate. He walks under the tree and picks up the notebook, careful not to trap any dirt between the pages as he closes it.

He can only hope that the nobleman won’t take offense to him bringing the notebook back. He’s had his life threatened over less. Either way, he needs to have a few words with the lady of the house, primarily about coin.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: panic attack, physical abuse (hair pulling), Roach is the only character who has a single brain cell.

Julian shakes on the stone floor underneath one of the tables in the kitchen, breath wheezing through his throat in a way that reminds him too much of the djinn, and he can’t fucking calm down, even with Roger kneeling nearby humming one of the songs he uses to keep time. His translator is even in the room, though he’s sat down on the other side of the room, looking worried. The sheer panic is subsiding, slowly, but it’s just being replaced with guilt and embarrassment and salty hot tears that he tries to hide with his hands, but they leak everywhere.

Yennefer was right. Yennefer was fucking right, and she isn’t even here to gloat about it. He wipes away the tears as best he can, though it feels like his entire face is drenched, and he shifts to press against the cold wall. He flicks the ring on his finger with his thumb and listens to the metallic rattle. He times spinning of the ring with the beat of Roger’s humming and tries to control his breathing to match. It seems to work, and his heart finally stops throbbing in his face and fingertips.

“ _JULIAN!_ ” His mother’s screech echoes in from outside. There goes his tenuous grasp on calm, great. Even Roger’s silent now, face white. He clambers out from under the table as Roger stands. He takes a deep breath, and Roger dunks a clean cloth into a bucket of water, gently patting Julian’s face to help get rid of the evidence of shed tears. Mother had always frowned upon tears.

Once Roger’s finished, Julian turns to his translator. “I’m sorry for what will happen,” he signs.

“Don’t worry,” the translator signs back. “I’ve seen similar. I’m not leaving you to be voiceless.”

Julian blinks back even more tears and reaches out to grasp the man’s bicep. He really should have gotten to know him better, but it’s too late now. He takes another deep breath and starts walking quickly through the house, his voice following behind like a shadow.

He opens the front door and doesn’t stop to let his eyes adjust to the daylight, walking to where he can just make out the silhouette of his mother. He blinks a couple times and astutely refuses to look at Geralt’s face. He stands with a griffin head at his feet and a notebook in an ungloved hand. Fuck. He’d left it in the tree in his panic. He hears Geralt inhale sharply and he chances a glance at him, stomach dropping as he registers the recognition in the witcher’s eyes.

“What in the name of Melitele were you thinking?” his mother hisses out, face contorted in rage. His translator swiftly moves around him, closer to Geralt, so he can see and speak for him.

“I was writing in the comforting embrace of nature,” he signs, but his translator only gets halfway through the sentence before his mother is talking over them.

“How many times have I told you? How many times did I tell you to stay inside?” she asks incredulously, and it feels like something inside of him flips, like a doorway slams shut. Everything goes calm and numb.

“Zero,” he fingerspells, and his mother’s eyes pop open wide and a vein throbs in her forehead even as she forces a placid smile.

“Oh darling, don’t you remember? Last night, over dinner, I told you to stay inside because the witcher said not to go into the eastern field, baby boy,” she says, voice saccharine, reaching out to cup his cheeks in her hands as if he’s still a little boy who can’t trust his own memory.

“No, you didn’t, you never even told me that the griffin had left the woods,” he signs. He’s just fucking tired. When will he stop being so damned tired?

Her mouth purses with displeasure and she quickly tangles her fingers into his loosely tied hair and _pulls_ , and he can’t stop the pathetic choked off whimper that escapes his throat. Of course the first noise he makes in nearly a year is a pained whine.

His mother seethes but the fingers in his hair loosen suddenly when she notices the blade hovering near his throat.

“Let him go,” Geralt growls, and Julian glances at him. He hadn’t seen him move, hadn’t heard him draw the sword, but there it is, next to his mother’s throat. He should probably feel something about that.

She removes her hand from his hair and steps back, watching Geralt warily. “You haven’t even gotten your coin yet and you’re already turning a sword on your employer?” she asks coyly, and he snarls.

“You’re not my employer, you’re my client. Come on, Jaskier,” he says gruffly, grabbing Julian’s wrist and pulling, and it’s all he can do just to stay on his feet and not catch a faceful of dirt.

Geralt drags him out of the estate, even as Julian’s mother makes a rather marvelous production behind them, collapsing on the ground and wailing “give me back my son” in near agony. He tries to pull out of Geralt’s hold but it’s no use, he’s always been so much weaker than him. He doesn’t want to go back to her, but he definitely didn’t want to leave like this.

He taps Geralt’s arm and starts hitting it when he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“Relax, I’ll get you out of here. We’ll stop at an inn first, get you food before we head out,” Geralt says. What the hell did he interpret the hitting and pulling away as, _please take me away ever faster, my shining knight_? What the fuck? Geralt whistles and Roach trots up, quickly slowing to match pace with them as they walk through town.

Julian gives Geralt’s armor one last strike before sighing and getting his feet properly underneath himself, keeping up rather than just being carried along. They’ll get to town, Geralt will eventually let him go, and then he can apologize profusely for showing up once again to ruin Geralt’s day and make a swift exit. Maybe he’ll even get his notebook back.

The walk into town is short and once they reach the nearest tavern Geralt turns to him, grasping both his wrists with his hands, and Julian ignores the panic spiking through the numb nothing, nose wrinkling at the sticky ichor now on his skin from Geralt’s glove. His notebook is tucked into Geralt’s belt, and by the gods he is getting it back.

“What happened to your voice, Jaskier?” Geralt asks, and Julian really doesn’t know why he cares, or how he expects him to respond. Geralt seems to realize this and curses. Julian tries to pull away but Geralt just pulls him back. “No, wait, hold on. Listen, I’m,” he trails off, and nearly looks… well, as near to any emotion as he ever looks, which just translates to vaguely nauseated.

“Look, I—fuck. I know you loved me, when we travelled together, and I ignored it,” Geralt says, and Julian’s breath catches in his throat. Is he going to yell at him for his feelings? Now, after all this time?

“I could… learn to love you, if it would make you happy, if it would make you stay.”

Julian stops breathing all together. It’s everything he’s wanted since he was twenty and figured out that it wasn’t just lust, it’s the best case scenario that he’d hoped for when he suggested leaving to the coast, and it hurts so much because he knows it’s being offered for all the wrong reasons. He knows it’s only being offered as reparations from a lonely man, and he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but he is weak. He is weak and wanting, just as he’s always been, and—

“ _Geralt_ ,” Yennefer hisses walking towards them with a murderous expression. Geralt’s hands loosen in shock and Julian quickly breaks free and grabs his notebook from Geralt’s belt. Yennefer grabs his sleeve and pulls him behind herself. He’s taller than she is, but he still feels safe with her standing protectively in front of him.

“Yennefer? What the fuck?” Geralt asks, frowning.

“What did you do?” she snaps at him. He takes a step back.

“I’m trying to make things right,” he says.

“And by trying, you’re making things worse. He reeks of fear, what did you do to him?” she asks, stepping forward.

“I didn’t do anything, his mother—”

“Abuses him, yes, I know,” she snaps impatiently, though the word feels like a slap to Julian’s face. She steps forward again. “Fear doesn’t linger that long, you know that.”

“I didn’t do anything to him!”

“You were holding his wrists down! What, taking his voice once wasn’t enough, you had to silence him twice?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Geralt nearly yells, getting directly into Yennefer’s personal space.

Julian takes a step back. They are completely wrapped up in each other, fighting with the same intensity they used to fuck with. He would know, he was still in earshot half the bloody time.

He takes another step back, and they just keep screaming at each other, getting louder and louder, fighting over him but about themselves as if he wasn’t still there. Would they even notice if he just turned around and walked away?

Yennefer jabs a finger into Geralt’s chest, yelling about how she’d nearly gotten Julian to leave the estate of his own volition. He turns and slips into the tavern, and the door closes with a soft click. He can still hear their screaming, and the tender pieces of his heart that had just started to heal break all over again. He holds his notebook tight against his chest. Maybe if he holds tight enough, he can keep the pieces of his heart from spilling out over the ground.


End file.
